


Cut Once

by wyvernwood



Series: Mikash and Zuran [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blow Jobs, Experienced/Inexperienced, M/M, Reunion Sex, SmutSwap treat, exes getting back together sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 17:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18287105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwood/pseuds/wyvernwood
Summary: or, A Knight ErrantA friend told Mikash she'd seen a courtesan in Kolva who looked just like his old friend. When they'd served together, and been prisoners together, they'd been more than friends. It's been ten years, but Mikash has to go see the man. Maybe, if this courtesan will take him on as a patron, he can get some of those lingering feelings out of his system?





	Cut Once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyEventide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyEventide/gifts).



_In which the sword proves mightier than the pen, and an old flame burns brightest._

"Measure twice and cut once." _A carpenter's proverb_

Mikash sat in the Lodge at a table and watched the patrons, with a particular focus on those that seemed likeliest to cause trouble. There were plenty who set off his mental tripwires as potential lawbreakers: the two women with the spiky shoulder armor, the bulky man with the tiny cage of insects at his belt, the skinny youth in the painted silk robe whose hair was wild with static electricity. None of them was the man he'd come here hoping to catch a glimpse of. 

Three months earlier, Mikash had been painting a picture in the studio of one of his friends, an artist of some repute. The brush had slipped in his hand, smearing the stroke, and Mikash let out an oath. 

The artist came over to see what was wrong. "What a word to come out of your mouth, Mikash," she said, amused, then looked closely at the problem Mikash's slip had caused. "That's easily fixed." She gestured with the brush she held in her hand. Mikash wasn't sure if she was showing him how to fix it, or emphasizing how easy it would be to do. "He looks familiar," she added.

"Who looks familiar?" Mikash looked at the unwanted streak of brown paint that extended from the sharp jawline of the face he'd been painting, still unsure how to repair his error.

"Your model. Isn't he one of the courtesans at the Kolvan Lodge?" She regarded the picture, a look of curiosity on her face, as she apparently tried to determine if the dark eyes and half-smiling mouth of the man in the drawing matched her recollection.

"I didn't have a model. I'm painting from memory," Mikash told her. "Someone I haven't seen in a long time." 

"Either that courtesan is his older brother, or you've forgotten what the fellow looked like and substituted someone you've seen more recently." The artist smirked. "It happens to novices all the time."

"Or maybe I'm not yet skilled enough at creating a resemblance," Mikash said modestly. 

"No," his friend said with definitively. "You're skilled enough. Like that one." She pointed at the last painting he'd done, which was of her. "You caught my look. I'm sure you've caught - whoever it is." 

Mikash hadn't been able to get her words out of his head. For years he'd managed not to think too much about Zuran. It had been too painful. But having got the idea to paint him, and then hanging the painting on the wall where he'd see it time and again -- he'd started having lurid dreams about visits with a courtesan with the face of his ex-lover, dreams that lingered in his mind, distracting him from his work. After a while he knew that the only way to resolve this was to go to the lodge and meet the man. Reality would throw its cold water on the fire of the fantasy and quench it, he hoped.

But there was no one he could see in the lodge who looked like Zuran, and he grew impatient. Mikash sketched the man's face in the margin of one of the proclamations he carried with a bit of charcoal. Once he was sure it was a good enough likeness, he showed the picture to the server who came to clear away the remains of his meal. 

"That's Topaz." She piled his dirty dishes on her tray. "He's got his own clientele, does a specialty business. There's a few men you could have a go with tonight, but not him. His schedule's full."

Mikash wasn't sure what to make of this information. "Specialty?"

"Men and women, the ones who like it to take time. He draws things out till they're begging, sometimes. I hear them." She giggled as she wiped the table down with a rag. "He gets big tips, and generous, shares with the servers. He's a gentleman. But for tonight, ask the concierge." She gestured at a man sitting at a lectern, a few patrons gathered in front of it waiting to speak to him. "He'll help you find the one who'll show you the best time." The server tucked the rag in the pocket of her apron and walked off, leaving Mikash's table clean and neat. 

This wasn't getting him anywhere, Mikash decided, at least not any progress on resolving the distraction. The server's words were only giving him more ideas, spawning all sorts of distracting fancies. His face flush, he headed out of the lodge. 

He would have left, only the woman who brushed by him in the doorway, tear streaks drying on her face, had the look of someone about to cause trouble. Momentum carried him several paces down the road, but his unease about her grew. Mikash followed his instinct back to the Lodge.

The woman was clutching at a bulky man's sleeve as he reached for his weapon. The fellow was threatening a man who was wearing nothing but a short silk wrap. Though he heard the bulky fellow say, "Draw your weapon and face me or I'll cut you down," Mikash could clearly see that there was nowhere the man in the wrap could be keeping a weapon. The silk clung to the man's body, showing the muscles in his shoulders and buttocks. In good shape, but still, an unarmed civilian, and Mikash's responsibility was clear.

As the unarmed man started to speak, Mikash interposed himself between attacked and attacker, trying a simple disarming technique. The bulky man had no skill to avoid it, and his sword clattered onto the flagstones underfoot. 

Now disarmed, the man got a look at the knight errant, and blanched visibly. Behind Mikash, the rescued crime victim spoke to the woman. "I don't know what you want from me, Miss, but this man has no reason to blame me for speaking out of turn. We both know I haven't said a word to you about him."

Mikash assumed the woman was the assailant's wife, come to upbraid him about visiting a courtesan. Her next words reinforced this assumption. "What he's done! Spent money we don't have on his _pleasures,_ he has." She started crying again. 

"If your husband has--" Mikash began. 

"My brother," the woman said, interrupting him. "And he did. I found where he changed our ledger to hide the money he took for it."

Mikash stopped her before she went on. Her complaint might be legitimate in her mind, but it was nothing the law prohibited, and none of his rightful concern. Household record-keeping was unregulated, and a sister had no right to monitor her brother's virtue, or lack thereof. He focused on the man who had drawn the sword; that was his task here. "Go home and explain yourself to your sister, but if you draw your sword in here, threaten an employee, I will have you before the magistrate." He stared at the man until he saw in his eyes that he'd backed down. The siblings headed out the door, talking in angry near-whispers. 

He turned to the man he'd intervened to help. 

"Thank you. Mikash." It was Zuran who said those words.

Not a man who looked like Zuran. The sketch on the proclamation had missed the shape of his eyebrows, because there was a new scar there that made a thin hairless line cutting through the right one, but nevertheless -- it was him, himself, the lover Mikash had abandoned out of guilt and fear when the war ended, the one he'd been drawing and dreaming about these last few months as though he'd known they were fated to meet again. Really there, standing there in a thin wrap that showed off every line of his body. 

It could not possibly be happening. Mikash stuttered as he tried to say his name. "Z-Zuran?" What did he say to a memory suddenly real? "You're…" He had no idea. His mind was a blank. "You…"

"I'm me, same as ever." Zuran's face had lit up. Mikash remembered that expression. Saying some more words, something about getting a drink, Zuran took his hand and led him, unresisting, to a curtained area with a table, benches, and stools. It looked big enough to seat a couple of drinking parties, or a half platoon if they were friendly. 

The server who'd told him about "Topaz" brought wine and cups. She didn't say a word as she set the cups down and opened the bottle, but she had a smile for each of them as she closed the curtain and left.

Zuran poured them both wine. Mikash just stared at him. "A toast to old friends," Zuran said, lifting his wineglass toward Mikash.

"Is that what we are? Old friends?" Mikash didn't pick up his cup. He felt unreal enough as it was, without adding wine's influence. 

"That and more," Zuran said. He leaned close, and their eyes met. 

Feeling the hypnotic pull of those piercing eyes, Mikash leaned infinitesimally forward, pressing his lips to Zuran's. His arms went around his old lover, pulling him close. They kissed, each expressing the passion of long separation against the other's lips. 

Mikash was bemused to find his armor and clothing flying off him all but unnoticed as Zuran seemed determined to render him entirely naked. He pressed his erection against Zuran's lips, eager for the attention his lover seemed insistent on giving him. Mikash was already so close to coming from the kiss and the delicate touches involved in stripping him that he worried if he waited, it'd be too late.

But apparently Zuran wouldn't let him. Mikash remembered now that the server had told him Zuran specialized in making clients wait for climax. Apparently he was going to show Mikash his specialty. The realization gave the knight pause. Maybe this wasn't the reunion for Zuran that it was for him, but instead, this was a courtesan's idea of rewarding a knight who had saved him from an angry client. Their shared past might be what made Mikash want this, but he had no way to know it was the same for Zuran. 

And for all he knew, Zuran hadn't ever forgiven him for what he'd done. That was probably why he'd never wanted to see Mikash when the war ended; why they'd parted ways and it had been so long. Mikash had betrayed him, and now, he didn't want to be in Mikash's debt. 

Zuran's mouth on his cock felt incredible. Mikash held himself utterly still, until the sensation didn't permit such stillness. His body trembled with the effort. The face, the lips were his lover's, but the technique was a stranger's; he'd never had a blow job like this. Every nerve ending was alight, but his cock wasn't ready for a climax; the lips would pause, curl tightly, and the feelings would recede just enough, and then he'd be deep in Zuran's mouth again and close, but not at the edge, and it built and built until it was almost unbearable. 

It was torment, but the most wondrous kind. He was desperate for release and never wanted it to end. One moment he was sure Zuran must have forgiven him the moment their eyes met, or when their lips met in that kiss, and the pleasure would surge through him, though it seemed to be held from surging out by a hot tightness around his cock, and the next moment he was just as sure that Zuran would never forgive him, that he was disgusted by having his betrayer's cock filling his mouth, that he was too professional to give it away but somehow both beliefs were in Mikash at the same time, and both were making him harder and more aroused than he had thought possible. 

At length he felt himself at a breaking point. Though he had barely moved, it felt as though he were balanced on a rope over an abyss, about to fall. The hot tight feeling in his cock released and a climax rushed through him, his whole body shaking, a groan the first sound he'd made since the ecstatic ordeal began. 

"We've come home," he heard Zuran say, feeling the warm breath of the words against his thigh. 

But this wasn't anyone's home. It was a place of commerce where sustenance was bought and sold. Zuran sat next to him on the bench. Mikash leaned into the other man's warmth, his embrace, and closed his eyes as he spoke. "I wish we were home. I had fantasies of us being together again, and when I heard you were here, well, that someone who looked like you was here, I thought… but I didn't want it to be like this, not a payment out of gratitude when I was only doing my job, Zuran." From almost outside himself, Mikash thought he sounded as if he were crying. Wasn't he feeling too empty to cry?

"It wasn't like that. I missed you. I wanted you." Zuran sounded sincere. But even when young, Zuran had been able to sound sincere when he wasn't. And now, being a courtesan, he had probably gotten even better at it, and Mikash was out of practice telling Zuran's fake from real.

"I appreciate your saying that," the knight said stiffly. "And it felt incredible. I appreciate that too." 

"And there's nothing for me to forgive you for." Zuran looked puzzled. Mikash wondered how he could pretend not to know and expect him to believe it, when it was something they both knew perfectly well. 

But maybe, somehow, Zuran had simply forgiven him, and this was his way of trying to demonstrate it. He would see. "If you've forgiven me, come with me. Let me… " Mikash's voice trailed off, as he remembered that the server was probably listening. He didn't want her to hear him begging and tell others about it later.

He tried to put his clothes and armor back on as swiftly as he could, flustered as he was by Zuran's gaze. His old lover didn't look away, or begin to dress himself, or anything that might be a let-up of the pressure Mikash felt of being watched. He knew he looked a sight when he was done. "Let me help you," Zuran said when Mikash picked up the tunic that went over his armor. He carefully adjusted the padding underneath, then smoothed the armor over it so it was as comfortable again as it ever had been. Then he untied the cords of the tunic, put it over Mikash's head and tied it again securely. "There. You look presentable," Zuran said with satisfaction, and dressed himself with quick and economic grace. 

Zuran spoke quietly to the concierge, and then they left. Mikash led the way to the rooms where he'd been quartered. They were on the far edge of the local Queensguard practice fields from the barracks, providing privacy and distance while also allowing those living there to use the base's facilities. The lock opened to his badge of office and the two of them went inside. 

"So this is where you've been living all these years?" Zuran asked.

Mikash shook his head. "I've only been in Kolva a few days. My post is in Aravesh." Aravesh was a smaller city than Kolva, with a busy port, a day's journey north. "I've been there five years now."

"So this isn't home, either. Now we're at your workplace, rather than mine." There were two comfortable chairs, upholstered in green and gold cloth patterned in the Queen's insignia, with a low square table filling the right angle between. Zuran sat in one of the chairs while Mikash went to get them drinks.

The knight came back with a decanter of fruit juice and two cups. "Exactly the same, and completely different. It's juice, not wine," he added as Zuran poured the dark red liquid into each of the cups, took one, and sipped. "Seeing you here, I can almost convince myself you really did forgive me. I can hardly believe you came."

"I didn't yet," Zuran said, laughing. "And you still haven't said what you think I've forgiven you for."

Mikash sat very still in his chair, and braced himself. His fingers whitened around the cup of fruit juice. "We were prisoners of the Kogarth, and you were very ill. And I could have stayed and taken care of you, but I refused, I left you, and what they did to you -- I never forgave myself, Zuran. So how could I expect that you would?"

"You did nothing wrong, and so I can't forgive you of it." Zuran, unbelievably, was smiling, though it faded away fast. Mikash stared at his mouth intently, wondering if it had been a smile of embarrassment, or the kind of smile people did when someone else had done something awful and they had to witness it. He thought it had been too beautiful a smile for those things, but it had gone before he'd finished looking at it. Zuran's arm moved inward, a motion that meant he was about to do something he didn't want to do -- it was a warning sign many criminals showed, Mikash had learned, and tensed. But Zuran didn't move, only spoke. "I don't know if you will forgive me, though, once you know what I did after that. At least we had this time together again. I'm grateful for it."

"What you did?" Mikash was confused.

"They said they were going to kill you because you wouldn't tell them anything they wanted to know, and they'd given up hope of you being useful. And they thought perhaps it was best if you died of an unfortunate accident. They told me this, and I begged for your life. I promised them anything. They took me at my word." Zuran looked grim. "I betrayed the Queen and our comrades, Mikash. I'm lucky I wasn't executed for it."

"I knew." Mikash leaned toward Zuran and put his hand on his lover's shoulder. "That was my fault. If I hadn't been there, if they hadn't had my life to hold over you, they never could have done that to you." 

Zuran looked as confused as Mikash had been. "Your fault? We were both their prisoners." He waved both hands in the air as if swatting away insects. Mikash felt incredibly guilty. 

He slipped out of his chair to kneel on the ground in front of Zuran. As he did that, Zuran took his hand and held it tightly. Mikash let him for a moment, then freed his hand and began to undo Zuran's clothes. "Yes, my fault. I need to…" Mikash's voice trailed off, and Zuran didn't say anything, but helped as they undressed each other.

The floor of his quarters was constructed of handspan-width wood planks laid side by side and end to end, and though it had been sanded enough not to have splinters, it was ridged and grainy rather than smooth.. It was a piece of reality asserting itself, keeping him aware it was real, not a fantasy or a dream, that as he knelt between Zuran's spread thighs and his lips went around Zuran's cock, Mikash could feel the wood's rough grain under his bare knees and toes.

Mikash licked around the head, tasting drops of salty sticky fluid. Zuran was very hard. Mikash cupped his lover's balls in the palm of one hand and slid his lips further down the shaft until he almost gagged on it. He was drooling enough to slick his other palm, and when he pulled back again, he wrapped the saliva-coated hand around the base of Zuran's cock with careful warm wet pressure.

Zuran groaned, a soft involuntary sound that Mikash hadn't realized he craved to hear until he heard it. He wanted more of that, and bobbed his head faster, seeking a rhythm that felt right, that reminded him of nearly lost memories of how Zuran liked this to go. He had just found it when he nearly gagged again as Zuran's cock moved into his mouth faster than he had expected because Zuran had leaned forward and put a hand on Mikash's shoulder where it met his neck. Zuran's thumb stroked across the bulge of his voice box, that bobbed up and down as he swallowed. 

That touch, that feeling, was overwhelming. Mikash had been half-hard since he got onto his knees, but when Zuran touched his throat, his cock went fully erect. "Ah," Zuran said softly, sliding his hand up the side of Mikash's neck, curving fingers around his ear, sliding them into his hair. Moving his mouth onto and off of Zuran's cock, Mikash was also then sliding his cheek and the side of his head against Zuran's palm. He pressed his cheek into the warmth of that hand, opening his mouth wider so the head of Zuran's cock pressed against the inside of Mikash's other cheek as his head turned. 

It ached, keeping his mouth open that wide, but his lips closed. Mikash didn't do it for long. He went back to sucking, still with one hand sliding down to the base, taking care of the part of Zuran's cock that wouldn't fit into his mouth. A trickle of wetness was slipping down Mikash's erection and almost tickled. He didn't touch it. His knees were starting to feel sore from the bare floor. Reality, he thought, I found him and he's here with me and this is happening, his hands on my body, his cock in my mouth, I'm not dreaming this time. Mikash remembered how he'd felt the last time he dreamed something very like this and woke up and it wasn't real: lost, and alone, no matter how many soldiers on the base were backing him up, or clamoring to be his squire, they were, in some incomprehensible way, not real.

Zuran was. Mikash had got lost in rhythm and memories and immediate discomfort and his mind blanked of everything but the look and feel and taste and smell and sound of his lover. Another, louder groan meant Zuran was close to climax. Mikash purposely pulled Zuran's cock deeper into his mouth, letting it gag him a little, because he knew it would not be long at all now, and this too made it feel completely real. He sucked harder and deeper and the reward of hearing and tasting Zuran coming made Mikash's cock throb in sympathy. He barely needed to touch himself to come too. 

When Zuran's slack cock slipped out of his mouth, Mikash looked up. Their eyes met. Zuran held a hand to him and helped him up, then, not letting go of his hand, led him to the bed. Mikash lay face down, head turned toward Zuran. Zuran lay on his left side facing Mikash, and began to caress Mikash's back with his right hand, kneading tight muscles in Mikash's shoulders and back, making long strokes down his spine.

Mikash felt himself relaxing utterly under his lover's ministrations. They didn't speak at all. He almost had fallen asleep when he heard Zuran speak again, quietly. "You're about to fall asleep, Mikash. Should I go?"

"Stay," Mikash said. He had never meant anything more.

"Yes," Zuran said, as Mikash drifted into a peaceful sleep. "I'll stay."

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a series written for the Knight Errant/Their Old Friend Who Is Now A Courtesan pairing for Smut Swap 2019.
> 
> Part I: _[Measure Twice](/works/18287039)_ is the same events as _Cut Once_ , told from Zuran's viewpoint.  
> Part III: _[Being Yourself, On Purpose](/works/18287246)_ is an immediate stand-alone sequel taking place the next day.
> 
> Thank you to asuralucier for beta-reading and for feedback that helped me make these stories better. I'm stubborn and didn't make every suggested change 😄


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